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Real Life: The Perfect Vagina

The demand for increasingly bizarre cosmetic surgery has taken a new twist, with women now undergoing genital operations in order to boost their sex life and their self-esteem, encouraged by the craze for bare-all Brazilian waxes and endless crotch shots in magazines, on the internet, on TV and in films.

As designer vaginas seep into the British consciousness, tonight’s Real Life documentary The Perfect Vagina sees one woman’s personal journey into this fascinating secret world.

According to a recent survey, 67 per cent of women in the UK think they have ugly vaginas. More and more women wax and shave their bits to Playboy perfection, and growing numbers of women are seeking surgery on their genitals. Surgery that promises better-looking vaginas has become one of the fastest growing areas of plastic surgery, and the number of vaginal cosmetic operations performed on British women has almost tripled.

But many people argue that this latest trend is personal vanity gone too far. In this documentary Lisa Rogers – fascinated by the fact that women will mutilate their vaginas all in the name of beauty – goes on a mission to find out why, despite still being a huge taboo, women have suddenly become so obsessed with this part of their body.

Lisa Rogers says she wants to understand why a growing number of British women who seem to hate their vaginas, and even teenage girls are seeing their GPs, convinced they need to go under the knife.

“I want to know why girls would want to cut up their bits. I think as woman we obsess about our appearance and put far too much pressure on ourselves.

“You’ve got to have the perfect hair; perfect face; perfect boobs; tiny waist; perfect bottom; perfect hairless legs; flat stomach; and there’s always that question – who are women having surgery for? Are they doing for themselves, so that they feel happier? They may think they are, but I think probably underneath that, it’s because they want men to find them attractive.”